I AM Philosophizing
My own story on my sixty year's effort to become an active philosophizer


The Art of Philosophizing

How did the great philosophers do it?
This section describes it as a dynamic action along all the space and time dimensions. Active Philosophizing is a method and a means to use and enjoy time. To feel, to think and to will, do engage different attributes of the psyche regarding the time dimension. Your feel may serve you well here and now. Your thinking is to its advantage if it is based on sensory inputs or scientific facts and conclusions from past time. With the analytical thinking the human can dissect the world around her/him and conceptualize its phenomena only as they speak to his cause and effect reasoning.

Regarding the will, there is no meaning in relating it to times past. The personal will thrives when linking itself to a higher meaning beyond the short time events in body, family, society and Life on Mother Earth. By balancing the three psychic attributes, will, think and feel, we can develop the time sensing system making humans and mankind feel more at home in the time dimension (peace in mind, harmony at heart and courage for the task of co-creating the future). This active philosophizing can act as a meaningful motivation for the rest of your life.

In contemporary society, we hardly find any higher meaning in our body functions but to serve the psyche and its preoccupation to control the body. However, if you ask your self what it is that is willing, feeling and thinking in yourself, you may expand our awareness one step: ‘I will’, ‘I feel’ and ‘I think’, might be your answer, thus pointing at your Ego as administrator of the three psychic capabilities. When referring to Ego in your own subjective language you use the word ‘I’. In an office environment it is natural to say ‘I feel tired’ after a long working day, and ‘I think we should consider those facts before we act’. And in a situation with the boss the following statement can be appropriate: ‘I will follow your senior advice’, as it indicates that my will follows a larger more long term will from the organization's top.

But, one has to remember that the above time perspective based upon the ego is still very subjective. To overcome this dilemma the philosopher must embark on a very lonely and cumbersome journey of relating his/her values and ideas to the long-term cultural and spiritual ideas and values that in respect to time reach out towards the Eternal ONE. It is thus not before you relate ‘your ideas’ to the historical and future flow of ideas from the Cosmic Self, or an ‘I Am’ beyond time, that you as a philosopher can get an ‘objective distance to, and perspective on time itself.’ The history of ideas thus becomes the homework for any philosopher-to-be before s/he can make her own philosophic statement on the future.

The careful training of the will, the feeling and the thinking can give you an enhanced sense of time. But not only that. You can develop a talent for empathy. By adopting an other persons will, feelings and thinking in your own psyche, you can develop a deeper understanding of that person and of human life in general around you. By the act of balancing your own will, feeling and thinking, you may transcend your egoistic blend and appreciate the talent and the ¹soul balance¹ of other fellow humans. You might even develop a philosophizing talent and a deeper understanding of how Socrates used his empathy as a method to understand and analyze the facts, words, conclusions and hidden motives in contemporary minds.

The art of philosophizing represents a method to enhance ones own sense of time and empathy with the evolution of life on this planet. To relive the flow of ideas that step by step over the centuries have formed the present society, is a meaningful task for the philosopher. To develop her feel and his analyzing mind is a balancing act for a humane philosopher in good contact with both his masculine and her feminine psychic capabilities. This makes her/him a true human, a wo/man, better equipped to serve the eternal ideas and values. It is a philosopher¹s spiritual duty to present his/her ideas to contemporary human beings and translate the ideas into a motivation for the future! It is a starting point for the creation of an image of the future in such a humble way, that the philosopher does spur, but not hurt, the contemporary minds. The beauty of a philosophical truth will penetrate and vitalize the souls that need them. And mind you, the children will grasp them directly - with joy!

The history is filled with philosophical contributions to the world-view of mankind.  In this chapter I will present a number of philosophers that in my mind have made crucial contributions to an evolving world view. They all had the courage to act their inner convictions. They can be seen as examples that help describe the evolutionary development of the world culture. In this way they can be said to have helped form the world-view for present society as well as form a base for the new one needed for a future global well-being. Their lives can give each of us an inspiration for our own life and roles in the paradigm shift at hand.

The philosophers chosen are Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Muhammad, Gottfried de Bouillon, Roger Bacon, Martin Luther, Thomas More, Isaac Newton, Wolfgang von Goethe, Henry Thoreau, Rudolf Steiner, Albert Schweitzer, Albert Einstein, and Henryk Skolimowski. They will be described in extremely short and simple terms. The method applied is empathic, i.e. the author of this text, I, ove@peace, has tried to will, feel and think as the philosophers under study in the crucial moments of creativity in their lives.

For me, this document represents a synthesis of my own philosophizing activity for the last 30 years. A lot of reading and digesting has been needed before getting the spiritual evolution in proportion, and having the courage to write it down. Furthermore, dear reader, the empathic exercise below hopefully can give you a brief introduction into the art of philosophizing.

Empathy is a way of respecting another living being, another human soul¹s wrestling with spiritual impulses, values and phenomena in contemporary society. It also means to fully respect another human mind living in another societal setting and acting under other historical conditions. Empathy is not sympathy nor antipathy. Empathy is a method to live another persons feelings, thinking, will and ideas without imposing ones own value judgments. Thus if setting ones own values aside, empathy is a method, by which you can stimulate the art of philosophizing within yourself:

Abraham lived as a nomad some 4.000 years ago. One day he had a spiritual experience. He heard an inner voice, asking him to break up from his parents in Haran and move his family and his animals, in accordance to further instructions from the spiritual source. His action can be seen as a act of free will. He had the option to deny the spiritual impulse. But he decided to follow it and was then tested several times for firmness of his belief.

Without the support from any religion or church he decided to follow the inner voice. This I see as a basic act of philosophizing. As an act of free will he linked his personal will to a higher Self. He accepted a higher value than his own as the guide for his behavior. Without any physical proof, but in total confidence, he responded to his God. Abraham, and his attitude to the spiritual guidance, is the common starting point, later recognized by three Abrahamic religions and cultures: Hebrew, Christian and Islam.

Moses was a Hebrew raised by the daughter of an Egyptian Pharaoh some 3.400 years ago. Thus he got a qualified education in the Egyptian culture and leadership. When Moses got his spiritual experience and great task to lead the Hebrews out of their enslavement in Egypt, he naturally asked the name of the deity who is asking him to perform this enormous task. The answer was ‘JHWH’, Jahweh, in hebrew meaning ‘I Am’ or ‘I Am the one that I will prove to be.’

Thus Moses was left with a huge project to be guided just by a vague invisible ‘I Am.’ (How would you yourself feel and act if you got a 40 year task defined in such a concentrated way?) Well, from that day Moses¹ talents from his own personal ego, was enhanced by an self that is, i.e. transcends time. This dialogue between Moses¹ personal and time limited ‘I’ and an eternal ‘I AM,’ teaches our philosophizing minds the existence of a Higher Self beyond the curtains of the personal Ego. Mose¹s experiences entered as sacred texts in the Torah, and later into the Old Testament of the Holy Bible.

Buddha, the Enlightened One, was raised as a prince in the Veda traditions. But he left his Hindu background to develop his own methods of meditation over Life and its manifestations here on Earth. His world view is centered around a peace message: ‘May all beings be free from enmity; May all beings be free from injury; may all beings be free from suffering; may all beings be happy.’ Buddhist environmentalists extend loving-kindness and compassion beyond people and animals to include plants and the earth itself. The concepts of karma and rebirth integrate the existential sense of a shared common condition of all sentient life-forms with the moral dimension.

Buddhism represent a set of meditation exercises for the individual to find and understand the principles of life. It is a holistic world view, but does not include a Supreme Creator or a need for the individual to strive to change Life conditions in society. But through meditation and spiritual exercises, the Buddhist can experience Nirvana, i.e. Oneness with Life as a whole. In Life¹s moral continuum, Buddhist ethics focus on human agency and its consequences. Thus it has become an important way for Westeners to get rid of images of God made up by the Abrahamic religions.

Socrates lived simple. His main occupation was to act his philosophical insights in live dialogues with friends, the young people and the politicians in Athens. Thus he scrutinized the society around him with his provocative questions and logical treatment of the language. He carefully tried the words so as to arrive at a common understanding of the meaning of the words used, before making any conclusion. And then finally, when this conclusions were made in the words of his opponent, Socrates helped relieve his partner of a hidden truth. He acted as a midwife helping a truth to be formulated. In that way the conclusions became inescapable for his dialogue partners.

With his method for seeking truth, Socrates revealed hidden motives behind societal events and development. He became dangerous to the leaders of the society and eventually sentenced to death. Formally he was accused for seducing the young with his ideas and not follow the religious norms of society. He had a firm belief that Truth, Beauty and Goodness was to be found in a spiritual world beyond the senses. By careful philosophizing and daring to will and act his inner spiritual conviction, he was striving for a better world to live in. As his inner voice did not suggest anything else, he took the hemlock poison to prove that he was not afraid to transcend into a better world.

Socrates had the idea that truth can only be reached by seeking a deeper meaning behind the concepts used by human beings in society. He initiated the art of philosophizing by his empathic behavior. Socrates engaged not only his intellectual capacity for analyzing a situation. He developed a feel for he opponents¹ way of using his words and a feel for how to mold a conclusion. His motivation to engage in this dangerous undertaking can only be explained as a determined will to seek spiritual truth at any cost with the help of a ever present Spiritual Self guiding him.

Socrates did not write anything himself. His pupil Plato, a sensitive poet, saw it as his task to formulate the phenomena around Socrates dialogues, and wrote them down. Plato¹s admiration and his poetic language, later was the base material for his student Aristotle, who could take the time to analyze the logic of the language in Plato¹s texts. Socrates was dead before Aristotle was born. So in fact the analytical methods and clear logic of Aristotle is totally dependent upon the phenomenological description Plato was able to write down out of the dialogues that Socrates dared to act out of his intuition and inner spiritual conviction. So, for the heritage from the antique Greek, we have to bow in reverence to the Great Spirit that designed the beautiful Socrates, Plato and Aristotle Triad!

Jesus was a Hebrew from Nazareth. He referred to the spirit world as a personal Father in Heaven. From him, Jesus got the task of living the truths contained in the Ten Commandments and the Torah. He treated all humans as equals and tried patiently to convey the morals in the Spiritual Law that guided the development of the Hebrew society as a chosen group of people from Moses onwards. In so doing Jesus¹ intuitive actions did upset the rabbis and high priests of the Synagogue. His acting of the truths was a threat to those who had developed the spiritual heritage into a detailed religious system by means of analytical thinking. Jesus made the opposite. He went back to the two basic spiritual commandments for the Hebrews before Moses: First: You should not have any other God than JHWH, Jehovah, an invisible God managing the spiritual development on planet Earth. Secondly, Behave to  your fellow humans as you want them to behave to you.

Like Socrates, Jesus lived his spiritual conviction and commitment to the bitter end. The crucifixion, resurrection and related mystical events created has had an effect on humankind that has lasted for two millennia. In the person Jesus and his determined preaching for basic human values, even heathens could find an icon and thus a glimpse of the spiritual world.

Muhammad lived in the beginning of the 7th century. He spent much time in Jerusalem pondering about the fact that his people, the nomad descendants of Ismael, had neither been attracted by the Jewish nor the Christian religion. Then he got the spiritual task and inspiration for writing down the Koran as a channeled text. It captured the souls emotionally beyond the moral code expressed in the Torah or the logic of the words of the Bible. Muhammad was overwhelmed by his vision, but empowered by a higher Self, Allah, he was able to gather the arabic tribes with his divine teachings. After the death of Muhammad in the year 632, the califs continued his mission in the form of a holy war. Within a century Islam had been established over a region reaching from Spain, Northern Africa and over Arabia to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Islam recognizes the writings of Abraham, Moses, King David (Psalms) and the Gospels (of the Cristian Greek Scriptures) as sacred text and inspiration beside the Koran.

Gottfried de Bouillion was a nobleman and a true Christian. Once when listening to the preaching of a bishop he was filled with the dream of rescuing Jerusalem from the ‘heathens’ i.e. the hebrews and the moslems. He put his castle in debt and furnished a little army and thus became the pioneer Crusader. Kings and dukes in feudal Europe started to serve the ‘Christian’ values of the Church with swords.

After centuries of religious development, Jesus¹ way of living his moral values unconditionally, come to influence all of Europe. His teachings had matured into a Christian state religion for the Roman Empire. Latin became the common language for the educated men in all of Europe. The church and its task to protect the Christian values survived the fall of the Roman Empire and developed into a political force in Western Europe. By year 1000 the Catholic Church saw itself and the pope as next to God in the political hierarchy.

Some century later, the totalitarian Church organized the Inquisition to kill those that did not conform and discouraged others to even try a deviation from the proclaimed truths and established belief system. One of the targets of the Inquisition was the Freemason movement of Knights and Templars. It became the starting point for an aristocracy behind the long term global monetary value system acting secretly behind the scene of politics.

In parallel to the above, a silent revolution within monasteries began to occur. It started when the Mores were driven out of Spain and the Catholic Church got hold of literature from Islam and ancient Greece. Learned monks were able to confront the Christian value system with Aristotle's teaching in logic. Thus the Church was made able to  make the Christian teachings logically coherent. This restructuring of the Christian Faith, was an enormous undertaking by the monks in medieval monasteries. Thomas Aquinas was the leading philosophers of this scholastic achievement.

The Christian value system is preoccupied with the actions and teachings of Jesus. It is a person oriented religion. It has no cosmology or world view of its own. The tales of creation are copied from the Hebrew holy scriptures. This void in the Christian system, left a door open for monks to begin reflect and philosophize on the physical world around the human without too much concern from the Church hierarchy. The monk Roger Bacon is an example of this. He lived around 1250 and was allowed by the bishop of Paris to make a treatise on optics and other natural science matters. He made a thick book out of his bold findings, Opus Major. It can be seen as an important trend break. But he was treading on the brink of what was allowed, and came into disgrace more than once when the church needed time to absorb Roger Bacons ideas. A quote from his works shows a remarkable visionary capacity:

‘I will now mention some of the remarkable results of art and nature, in which there is not anything of magic, and that no magic could bring forward. Machines may be able to be manufactured, of which the largest of ships, with only one man to manage them will be carried forward with greater velocity than if they were full of sailors. Wagons will be constructed that move with incredible speed without the help of animals. Machines for flying can be created, in which a man can sit in tranquility and think about whatever matter he wishes, while the artificial wings are waving the air in the manner of birds ...  as well as machines that will enable men to walk on the bottom of lakes or rivers without ships.’

From now on logical analysis and philosophical reflection became acknowledged methods. The systematic study of life, nature and society was possible from within the sheltered life of a monastery. One important condition still remained. The author must give all the glory to God, for any revelation of his scientific findings.  Anyhow, monasteries allowed a sort of ‘objective’ distance to life in the surrounding society. And the monastery library provided access to relevant literature. At the time, Latin was the unifying language for managing Europe. The above reasoning gives us a conclusion and explanation to the fact that modern science come to grow out of the nourishment and limitations of a religious value system.

Martin Luther was a monk in the sense above. He had the knowledge of Latin and access to the revised bible that had survived both the power hunger of the Roman Empire trying to make the Catholic Church serve as a state church, and the scholastic efforts to make Christian value system logically coherent. But still the teachings in churches was in latin, as an internal affair between the priests and God. The audience was left as a passive part of the mass. Luther's grand idea was to translate and preach the Bible by means of the mother tongue of people in each country. This satisfied a hunger for spiritual insight and gave people the opportunity to make their own conclusions.

Luther openly criticized the method of indulgence, and was excommunicated by the Pope. He fled the monastery in protest against misuse of power by the Catholic Church (at the time it was assumed that the Church owned some 30% of the land in Europe!). His protests and personal courage gave birth to a protest movement and the greatest sect within Christianity: Protestantism. The logic and coherence of the revised and translated bibles thus became the Ethics taught in Protestant churches until this day.

Sir Thomas More was the Lord Chancellor around year 1500 in England. As such he was the highest legal authority of the administration and defender of the faith, i.e. Catholic Church values. When Henry VIII asked for the consent for divorcing his first wife, from his Lord Chancellor, More could not do so due to the doctrines of the day. This protest was described as a ‘silence that echoed through all of Europe.’ More was sent to the Tower and the king took on the burdens of defending the faith - a new faith separated from the Pope in Rome. From now on Anglican and Protestant monarchs asked their subordinate archbishops to ‘empower them with the Grace of God.’ The medieval spiritual hierarchy was demolished. From now on Protestant monarchs were next to God rather than the Church. With the inspiration from the crusaders some centuries of European warfare began between Catholics and Protestants. The bloodshed sometimes was motivated by some minor discrepancy in interpretation of the Christian bible between two sects.

In 1514 More published a book named ‘Utopia’, describing a frugal life based upon human values in a country ‘Nowhere.’ The publication has given its name ever since to pieces of literature describing a society beyond the present day values, norms, intrigues and power games.

The medieval hierarchy with God at the top, had to yield to the aristocracy, when monarchies and kings made the church serve their aims and hunger for power. Sweden is a good example of the above. King Gustav Wasa looted the churches, proclaimed a reformation and forbade the Catholic faith in Sweden from the middle of the 16th century.

Freed of the values, norms, intrigues and power games of the Catholic Church some four hundred years of creative philosophizing could evolve. Philosophy became a platform for defining new areas that could be described phenomenologically, defined with new concepts, and further explained by words and mathematics. A late relative to the monk Roger Bacon named Francis Bacon (1561-1626), expressed the idea that this new form of knowledge about nature should be utilized for the best of mankind and coined the credo: ‘Knowledge is Power.’ Bacon was a renaissance ¹tycoon¹ that also helped provide the english language with some thousands of new linguistic concepts, and thus laid the ground for a later worldwide British imperialistic rule.

Isaac Newton is the outstanding example of a philosopher able to synthesize a vast number of observations and theories about planetary motions and mechanical forces by means of of a few simple mathematical equations. He explained his achievements as ‘he was standing on the shoulders of giants’ and thus could see a bit further than them. He was a firm believer in the Christian Faith, knowing that it was God¹s Grace that opened his mind for the new concepts, gravity and velocity, needed for his elegant equations describing the motion of heavenly bodies. In order to introduce this new concept he had to conceive a linear assumption of time, which is formulated in the beginning of his trendsetting book Principia Mathematica Naturalensis, first printed in 1687.

Wolfgang von Goethe rejected the mathematical perspective of Newton and studied nature without instruments or mathematics. According to Goethe, God designed the human with the necessary senses plus the analyzing and synthesizing faculties to give him the understanding the qualities of nature he is allowed to acquire. Thus both the soul and the spiritual side of the human is needed in the study of the nature. In this way Goethe studied the metamorphosis of plants and the deeper meaning of colors. The study of the laws of nature also includes a moral imperative. Most of Goethe's study of nature was left as manuscripts. He is is mostly remembered as poet, author, and playwright. He had to earn his living.

One hundred years later Rudolph Steiner was given the task of editing the scientific manuscripts from Goethe. In so doing Steiner discovered and described Goethe's phenomenological methods. Furthermore he developed Goethe's ideas into Antroposophy, a philosophical system including the spiritual capacities of man. It was born in a time when natural science made astounding progress based upon its ¹objective¹ and value free methods. However, Steiner's results still live on as Waldorf Education, Biodynamic Farming, Health Pedagogy and Eurythmi, a form of healing dance. These holistic methods were developed well in advance awaiting their recognition for an evolving new world-view centering around Life itself.

Albert Einstein had a firm belief in the divine creation. By an act of creative empathy he imagined the experience of riding a beam of light. In this way he was able to put himself in a position to formulate the theory of relativity in a macro cosmos limited by the speed of light. He was able to formulate a model of micro cosmos and its basic energy-matter & velocity of light equation: E= mc2. His findings shattered the deterministic world-view of Newton, opened the eyes of a frightened world for the Atomic Bomb and possibility for abundant nuclear power.

Bertrand Russel can be regarded as the philosopher of the 20th century with a grand overview. In his book History of Western Thought, he proves it. Most facts for this chapter in my book come from Russell's beautiful work. Through Russels you can get aquatinted with all the philosophizing performed during the last five hundred years leading to the division of knowledge into scientific sectors of specialization.

However, in his suggested method ‘analytical philosophy’ Russel is leading contemporary minds into a blind alley of limited scope philosophizing. Finally, in the formation of the Pugwash movement he is marching in protest to ‘Ban the Bomb,’ rather than using a philosophers right to outline a value system for the future.

Albert Schweitzer was a well educated man. He had Ph.D.-degrees in each Theology, Medicine and Philosophy. When he left Europe for practicing medicine in Africa, he was regarded almost as a traitor. Why should he leave the urgent problems of war torn Europe and give his knowledge away to the poor and sick people in the African Colonies? He was fully aware of the problems of the time and formulated his philosophical conclusion as: ‘We should all recognize fully that our present entire lack of of any world-view is the ultimate source of all catastrophes and miseries of our times.’

How can we explain Schweitzer¹s outstanding academic achievement? Empathic balance and professional engagement! This is my explanation. As a pastor he missioned the Christian Faith and lined up his ambitions and pursuit with a divine will. As a medical doctor he used the diagnose and therapy knowledge of contemporary science. He produced literature with philosophical insight. He was a organ player and made concert tours to raise money for his hospital in Africa. He lived a frugal life an developed an attitude and a ‘will to live surrounded of life that also had a will to live.’ In so doing, he becomes more than credible with his philosophical credo for the future ‘Reverence for Life.’

The contributions above makes Albert Schweitzer to a portal philosopher for the Green movement of the coming century and an inspiration for a millennium of systematic improvement of the Quality of Life here on Earth.

Henryk Skolimowski is a modern philosopher with the courage and wisdom to recreate a holistic model for the world ahead. The titles and subtitles from six of his books give an idea of his scope:
ECO-PHILOSOPHY,  Designing New Tactics for Living, 1981
PARTICIPATORY MIND,  A New Theory of Knowledge and of the Universe
ECO-ETHICS AND WORLD ETHICS,  World as Sanctuary
ECO-YOGA,  Practice & meditations for walking in beauty on the Earth
LIVING PHILOSOPHY,  Eco-Philosophy as a tree of life
DHARMA, ECOLOGY AND WISDOM, in the Third Millennium, 1999

Skolimowski does not only dare to bridge science and theology, but also strikes a balance between Eastern and Western religious systems and traditions. This is what a philosopher expected to do, but few or any has had the courage to even try during the last century of slicing up a holistic world-view in manageable sectors. Skolimowski made his doctorate at Oxford University where he proved himself to the philosophic community of the time in the 1950s. Since those years, he has established a bold criteria for new Philosophy: It has to be put on trial on the tribunal of Life! As our understanding of Life is less than satisfactory if we use the fragmented natural science methods, a participatory and synthesizing approach is needed. The eco-scientist can not have an objective distance to life. S/he is part of it. Thus s/he must develop an inner Ethic of Life in order that Life will give away its inner secrets. Life has a meaning. It can not be understood by a dissecting analytical mind that tries to get personal power out of knowledge. The frugal life, a humble meditative mind as taught by Eastern religions must also come into play, before the heart of the scientist is in harmony with Life. Henryk Skolimowski has the courage to do this and find a balance on ‘the shoulders of Giants’ such as Buddha, v. Goethe, Henri Bergson, Albert Schweitzer and Teilhard de Chardin.

Empathy is a central concept for Skolimowski. It includes an attitude of reverence to Cosmos. He expresses the yoga of empathy as: ‘When you know the meaning of empathy with the elements you begin to comprehend the mysteries of life.’ From this philosophical kernel he then develops a method of participatory research with the following  set of characteristics:
The participatory research is the art of empathy -
is the art of communion with the object of inquiry -
is the art of learning to use its language -
is the art of using its language -
is the art of talking to the object of inquiry -
is the art of penetrating from within -
is the art of indwelling in the other -
is the art of imaginative hypothesis which leads to the art of identification -
is the art of transformation of ones consciousness so that it becomes part of the consciousness of the other.

Henryk Skolimowski has the courage to revitalize philosophy into an art and scientific method for Life as a Cosmic Evolution. His credo is well formulated in the introduction to the book Living Philosophy:
‘After the juggling with economic figure is done, there is still a life to be lived. The meaning of life is not to be derived from any economic calculation; its roots lie far beyond all economic and physical parameters. Bertrand Russel and other positivists of the twentieth century have nearly persuaded us that the human project is to explore the physical world. Eco-Philosophy insists that the human project is a rediscovery of human meaning, related to the meaning of the universe.’

With this quotes and excerpts, relevant to Moses, Socrates, Jesus, Bacon, Schweitzer and Skolimowski, we leave the philosophers.  The above historical overview forms the base for a short personal conclusion of the act of philosophizing as an art.

The art of philosophizing, is a method for mankind to embrace the universe with her empathy and participatory mind. The history of ideas highlight some hundred men that have given birth to new ideas and contribution to an evolving world-view. So far philosophizing have very much been an exercise of logical analysis, moral discourse and beauty of language trying to describe an expanding consciousness for contemporary minds. These philosophizing efforts have step by step given motivation and meaning to man in his effort to develop society. And for some six thousand years this has been a masculine endeavor. The dominating man is a stereotype with strong roots in the higher professions of society like priest, warrior, craftsman, artist. The contribution to society of this male perspective, is the materialistic society we around us today. Mankind has been able to create a new cast of slaves: the machine world of household gadgets, transportation means, energy conversion systems, telecommunications and computer control relieving man from hard labor. However, the price for these blessings is high: enslavement of mankind in industry, stereotype jobs, deployment of resources and unacceptable emissions on a global scale. It is time for a new philosophy which can give mankind a new and inspiring vision for the future evolution.

Life itself is the soft persistent voice within telling us the new direction of evolution. By adopting a reverential attitude to life we might experience the necessary moral of life here on Earth. Mother Earth, GAIA, is asking us to respect life by calling on the feminine aspects of our minds and mores. A true empathy for life is beyond the masculine and feminine capabilities of mind and soul. The rational mind may grasp some of the intrinsic logic of how life is designed. But the long term meaning of why Life exists, is a challenge to the holistic synthesizing mind. Together the two perspectives may improve mankind's knowledge of the deeper meaning of Life in the biosphere. By the help of Schweitzer¹s ‘Reverence for Life’, and the ‘Participatory Mind’ that Skolimowski advocates, we might adopt an appropriate attitude for a future Life on Earth. And in so doing man might even open up and use her spiritual empathy with the Cosmic Self, an eternal ‘I Am’ that is beyond time.

Did you notice the Swedish impulse to the sentence above? In Sweden we talk about the human, man as a species, as ‘människan, hon (man she)’ i.e. as a feminine gender. The country as a whole is sometimes called Mother Svea. This relates well to James Lovelock¹s concept GAIA as a feminine deity for life upon Mother Earth. To let the readers experience some flavor of the Swedish language, I will in the rest of this essay use the concept ‘man, she’ to let you experience some of the preconceived ideas of genders spread around the globe by the sheer logic of the English grammar.

We live in a time of a great paradigm shift when Life and Human Values are to be rebalanced. We have to accept totally the feminine capacity in both men and women as a way for mankind to become more human. Mankind must recognize and yield to the forces of life in her environment. If she lives up to the task given to Eva to take responsibility for human life, she, i.e. humankind, must integrate the seeds from her philosophical fathers in heaven and respect the feminine conditions of GAIA. Life on earth is a spiritual manifestation beyond the human genders. Society does not need a Matriarchy that is a mirror image of men's hunger for power. Welcome the Goddess! Transcend the old philosophical stereotypes. Life on Earth is just another Cosmic Experiment to develop life for the Universe. It is a joy to participate in this evolution as a philosopher just now.


Summary. Life is evolving. Empathy is the humane method for man in taking full responsibility for her life in the future. Balance the feminine and masculine capacities in man, and she will fill her mind with  the joy of co-creation . The art of philosophy is a means for the mind to get conscious of the evolution of Life over time and space. To live a frugal life and use our time here on earth wisely and improve life little by little is a life style that can get a cosmic approval. As for my own personal synthesis of the value system for the future, I am herewith formulating it as a hierarchy of indicative values for 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 year cycles ahead. The long term values are assumed to act as overall criteria for the cycles on shorter terms in a feedback system of inner and outer loops stabilizing evolution ahead. This value hierarchy is my personal contribution to philosophizing at present:

A Cosmic Value Hierarchy

10.000 year cycle values:
Balanced humane use of feminine and masculine capacities
Spiritual Evolution of the Civilization on Earth
Reverence for Cosmic Love

1.000 year cycle values:
Peace on Earth for developing Life into a Cosmic Export Quality.
Reverence for Global Life.

100 year cycle values:
Life Style Experimentation.
Peace at Heart Villages for a frugal life to develop Eco-Philosophy
A Peace in Mind City Network for a Political and
Economic Peace Management
Establish a global network of Peace Centers
and InterNetting Universities for Global Well-Being
Reverence for Mother Earth, GAIA.

10 year cycle values:
Apocalypse and Global shakeup
Spiritual awakening of mankind¹s moral responsibility
Cosmic explanation of the Paradigm Shift  
Humiliation, self-criticism and humility.
Mind the Time

"In the hearts of people today there is a deep longing for peace. When the true spirit of peace is thoroughly dominant, it becomes an inner experience with unlimited possibilities. Only when this really happens-when the spirit of peace awakens and takes possession of men's hearts, can humanity be saved from perishing."
- Albert Schweitzer